


godeater

by lovetheory



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23551873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetheory/pseuds/lovetheory
Summary: I'm still waitin' for the day you consume me whole.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 13
Kudos: 210
Collections: SakuAtsu Week 2020





	godeater

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> late entry for [sakuatsu week 2020](https://twitter.com/sakuatsuweek%22). day 4 tier 1 prompt: trace / skin, & day 5 tier 1 prompt: trust / misunderstanding.
> 
> dedicated to sarah, known atsumu propagandist. hope u like it!
> 
> all my thanks to my beta reader, [simone](http://twitter.com/Velvetkaisoo). i wouldn't have done this without u. am always grateful to have u help me.

_"Something had gone through me and out and I could not own it."_

The Glass Essay; Anne Carson

  
  
  
  


Boarding school boys are rowdy, foul-mouthed, rough around the edges. They are indolence, correction marks, and calloused hands. They are a far cry from home, estranged sons, and unresolved tension. They are boys: curious, cautious, righteous, and unforgiving. Most of all, they are learning about life in a remote world where freedom is at its outermost core: in halls they are not to roam past nine in the evening; in archaic study halls that house secrets exchanged between professor and student that gather as much dust as the tops of their desks and bookshelves; in boarding rooms where they learn of intimacy in dark, foreign places because they’re too busy being molded into gladiator and mercenary in the light. They are all just trying, Kiyoomi thinks, when he looks at Atsumu.

_I look at you, and you don't like me, Omi-kun. You will_ , Atsumu says into the empty hall as they both make their way back into their separate boarding rooms, the worry of being caught together past curfew dissipating. And it's the stable breathing that releases these words and the unmistakable confidence that lace them that quicken the beat of Kiyoomi’s heart, fists clenching in his pants' pockets. Because he knows Atsumu’s dead serious and he knows he's right. Because as much as Kiyoomi wills himself to go on a different train of thought, he will end up in the one that wants to know Atsumu, as he did in the past and in an earlier time. He cannot see beyond him, and Kiyoomi is still trying to navigate this space, still trying to figure out if it's loss or gain. A part of him in his weary state thinks he wants it to be the latter, and then he falls asleep.

Atsumu Miya is not expendable. He is a shadow of Kiyoomi's desire. He acknowledges this with a growing frustration, as he does with all unresolved issues in this life. Kiyoomi calls him that: an unresolved issue. An issue if he may simplify it. They're in the same classes and they're in the same boarding house, and the tension between them fills each and every space they inhabit. He feels it on his skin, crawling inside of him and grabbing at his heart. It's a visceral experience, to yearn, like a fate that has befallen him. A contrasting sensation to what he's used to. It gnaws at him, takes from him, and he lets it, he lets it. He's still just trying, he tells himself. A guiltier figment of his imagination that takes his form would tell him that he's no victim to the idea of Atsumu's glory but that of his own desire. He is still to blame if all this blows. And that's what he fears most. At the end of everything, who's fault would it be? If it is his, he couldn't take it. So he keeps to himself because it's safe, and he knows himself. He doesn't need to know Atsumu, he promises.

In all actuality, Kiyoomi has only ever been at the receiving end of Atsumu's half-hearted coaxes, always playing it safe with him, but still enough to push Kiyoomi’s buttons.

_You think maybe we could be friends?_ he asked once, all breathy and thoughtfully. He had caught up to Kiyoomi at a Track and Field match, placing second, and Kiyoomi had felt that distance like a knife twisting in his gut. So close, he was so close, yet it was Kiyoomi who had turned out to be the victor. He compartmentalized: pushed his relief to the back of his head and answered him, easy. _No._ He stared up at the sun glowering at them before walking forward.

_Come on, Omi-kun. I raced all this way for ya._ Atsumu kept up with him in stride, stretching his arms above his head.

_No, you didn't. You wanted to win._ He looked, he wanted to look. Atsumu's arms weren't monolithic, but they did give that impression. At the very least, they were limber, like that of a Greecian sculpture. He reminisced about the one he had stared down for an art history paper just days ago. Strange, the inkling of attraction that had arisen from that. Only when he had imagined Atsumu in its place did he snap out of it again.

At the same time, Atsumu had stated, _That was only a secondary goal. I'm tryna be yer friend here. We don't talk in class except during paired activities and even then I get more grunts than words. Isn’t the awkwardness unbearable?_

_No,_ Kiyoomi thought aloud, _on the contrary, the awkwardness is quite up to my standards. It really is fine, Miya. You don't have to befriend everybody,_ he had uttered coolly, stuck on Atsumu’s Kansai accent.

_Hey,_ Atsumu warned before his expression and tone shifted _. I do, trust me,_ he said, sanguine, gaze lingering on and piercing through Kiyoomi as he walked away from him with the ghost of a smile on his face, even when turning away.

He was frustratingly vague and his words held too many meanings, Kiyoomi thought, none of which he wished to find out. Kiyoomi carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, he did not want any more from Atsumu.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Atsumu was a master in the art of persuasion, though it would only come to be under certain circumstances. All that had to be done was to know him and if that reverence was recognized, he: half boy and half god, would give himself to another. In turn, they would give themselves to him as if it were the most natural exchange. He knew what others needed and used himself as a vessel in pursuit, acting from above. He was described to be someone larger than life, impressing upon people as untouchable but dependable, someone powerful and admirable. To Kiyoomi, he was a myth.

What he saw was merely a boy and a fabulist. Performative, attention-driven. Everything that had to do with vanity. Kiyoomi choked on the absence of sincerity. He was wholly unimpressed. But it was the rare instances where they would come in contact that he was most familiar with: fleeting, prolonged glances that would awaken a hunger within him. To know, to know what it means: the intricacies of a gaze, its significance. The devotion in kindling a friendship with him. He’s always thought it to be a misplaced one. Why him? is a question that remains unanswered, pondered over and over again, amplified by his avoidance at encountering Atsumu. Their relationship presents an arduous task carried on by both parties, more so on Kiyoomi’s part being that he has the tendency to overanalyze whatever matter. He wants to ask where the yearning to know begins and ends. He is not luminary, but he garners enough respect from himself and others for he is molded by an obstinacy that renders his survival. He hardly makes himself known, and he finds that perhaps this could be a reason for Atsumu’s inexorable pursuit of amity.

On the eve of their final exams, Kiyoomi takes a walk on school grounds. A noise by the woods where a gate lies beyond stops him in his tracks. It does not occur to him then, that he recognizes the form and shape of Atsumu, but he does, and he curses softly, the idea of his disfavor towards him ingrained in his mind, pulled out like muscle memory. The sound of a vehicle engine can be heard in the near distance. Of course Atsumu would find himself in a mutinous task. This was the source of Kiyoomi’s disquiet of the mind. Coupled with the performative streak, he detests the act of going out of one’s way to gain happiness, especially if it exceeds rules and regulations. After all, he has never had a reason to explore beyond school grounds. He values adaptation and contentment, but towards the end of the thought, the feeling creeps up on him: of his morals being molded by the school, by this world alone; that a world farther away exists, and he gets the feeling that he has had something not fully _his_ in his grasp for a long while now. When Atsumu appears before him, Kiyoomi waits, and looks, openly, half of him lost to disillusion.

“Fancy meetin’ ya here,” Atsumu greets him, voice low, eyes holding every bit of wonder he bears at the sight of a wandering Kiyoomi, the latter figures. There’s that growing smile on his face.

Kiyoomi wants to hide in it for a little bit. “I could say the same for you. Where you goin’?” he raises his brows at the vehicle in question, parked by the gate from outside. It must be the calm he had collected, making his rounds tonight. Conversation is suddenly so easy.

“Went for a night drive. A pal had gotten in contact with me tonight about the car. I couldn’t sleep without doing so,” Atsumu responds, like it should make sense. It does and it doesn’t. Kiyoomi wants to laugh, but he’s too attuned to the open space that surrounds them and the short distance between them, like the former is irrelevant, and like the latter should be relevant. Atsumu is strange, the kind that appeals to Kiyoomi. The horror at this realization is distant; a gush of truth settles in him. There is no stronger weapon that yields comfort like truth.

“Where’d you go?” he bites, because he wishes to know, because he wants to go somewhere, both figuratively and literally. When desire arises to the surface, there is no stopping it, Kiyoomi learns tonight.

"Why do ya wanna know?" He feels like Atsumu is unlocking some part of him and he's willingly making it happen.

"I think you're nervous about tomorrow," he responds with conviction.

"Is that why you're out here?"

"Yeah," he confesses into the quiet of the night. “Final exams, and then the short and sweet wait til graduation.”

Atsumu smiles at that, one side of his mouth pulled up. For the most part, he looks contemplative, nostalgic. He looks like they have history, like Kiyoomi knows this person well and this face is only resurfacing as a memory of the past. His heart hurts when he realizes the gravity of his words, and the events of only a few days old catapult themselves in mind.

“Take us somewhere,” he suggests, voice soft but undaunted.

There is not a hairbreadth of surprise in the shift in Atsumu’s expression, but an understanding that’s reserved for an old friend, in a language they’re only just learning.

“Sure, Omi-kun,” Atsumu responds, meeting him, matching his tenderness.

* * *

  
  


Atsumu fixes the rearview mirror, takes one good look at him, and drives. Kiyoomi's left staring at him from the passenger seat, both boys highly conscious about his actions. Kiyoomi did not tell him where to go, handing over his trust to Atsumu in a moment of adventure. Atsumu followed, keying his car before opening the passenger door for him like clockwork. Everything had happened in silence and anticipation. Kiyoomi stares long enough to make out the sharpness of his cheekbones and nose. Under the street lamps that pass them by, Atsumu impresses upon him as a near enigma, like staring at the god the people spoke of. This is where his convictions leave him.

_Untouchable._ Atsumu burns bright orange, his flames encapsulating the sphere of Kiyoomi's mind. His mouth was gaping and he felt his breath leave him. In the back of his head is the thought that his body is a traitor to his mind. The way it reacts to the sight of Atsumu is nearly indecipherable, but the truth plagues him, always there to knock him off his feet, his grasp on fallacies loosening.

Atsumu slows his car to a stop up a hill that overlooks the city. He drops his eyes to his lap before meeting Kiyoomi’s gaze, turning in his seat to face him. It’s the most natural thing in the world when his thumb brushes Kiyoomi’s cheek, the act akin to an old habit. _God-touched;_ it was at the forefront of Kiyoomi’s mind. It hangs in the air between them. He sighs into his palm, hot breath over warm skin. Warm skin over hot skin.

Atsumu watches him, heedful. He has a raw expression on his face that Kiyoomi recognizes from all the accidental stare downs. He feels so much as he sees his eyes on his lips when he asks, “I’m never going to see ya again, am I?”

The only way these words could have left him is through lament, Kiyoomi knows this. In this moment, Atsumu bears his heart to him, offering it to him through tone, touch and sight. The promise of tomorrow is bleak, barely there. Kiyoomi does not lie. Not even when he tells him in response, “No. No, you won’t.” They sound hollow to him. He wonders what they sound like to Atsumu, if he could sense his surrender; ample and unyielding.

“Couldn’t even be yer friend,” Atsumu laughs lightly, his thumb moving beneath Kiyoomi’s cheek until it leaves him and there is nothing but a memory of a touch that is slipping from his grasp. Before he can fully retract his hand, Kiyoomi’s fingers touch his palm, immobile, under him.

“You are.”

“Yeah?” Atsumu asks, easy, a budding excitement at the end of it.

“Yeah.” Kiyoomi answers him with a nod, taking Atsumu’s hand and laying the back of it on his lap so that his palm is facing up to him, his own fingers perched precariously at the center of it.

This is the language of boys. This spiral into the heart of things, gradual, like honey. Surrender was upon them. And then: a fiery devotion.

"What took so long?" Atsumu asks him, curious.

"I had my doubts," he begins, slowly. "I didn't trust what was in front of me," he trails off, and then finally, "and I'm never going to see you again." They flow through him like water stored too long in fear of its simplicity. Here is the truth of every convoluted thought; the last one stings like a pinprick to his skin.

Atsumu just looks at him, sympathetic, before he says, "Well, yer seeing me now, aren't ya?"

Sakusa eyes him, trying to read his face but it remains the same, giving nothing beyond his words. The pain still gushes through him. "What do you mean?"

"Ya know what I mean," he tries him, but Kiyoomi won't settle for less; desperate.

"I need you to be direct with me."

“Have I not been direct enough?” he asks, voice tinged with incredulity.

Kiyoomi flinches, nervous about portraying such emotion. “See, you do that thing where you speak, you imply, but you never blatantly say what you mean.”

With Kiyoomi’s fingers lightly grazing his palm, Atsumu speaks without reserve, tells him, “I want ya,” gives in, “I wanna know ya. Want yer hand in the pocket of my coat, yer fingers on me, just like this. Wanna argue and make up with ya. Wanna kiss ya and make ya smile behind that mask ya always got on.”

Kiyoomi feels, almost, that the sound of his breathing is intruding on the delicacy of Atsumu’s words, so he stops for a while, nails continuing down their path on his skin, unable to tell where Atsumu involuntarily affects him, and where his self-control lies.

“I’m still waitin’ for the day you consume me whole,” Atsumu confesses, at last, and it tastes like surrender. Ignoring the laws of time and space, he feels each word everywhere. It coats his tongue, makes his skin buzz. It shakes Kiyoomi, makes his walls dissolve into the darkness that surrounds them.

This is not something he had predicted, but wanted. It was always there. He could never say it; too sacred to utter. Atsumu without armor, murmuring confessions into the night, like prayer, like a boy would, like desire is their god. Atsumu: half-remembered, half-mythologized, and all of him for the taking, all of him Kiyoomi's. When their lips touch, it's from an increment of the colossal feeling that sits on his chest. Atsumu is a master in the art of persuasion, and Kiyoomi was beginning to learn, so was he.

**Author's Note:**

> if u enjoyed this piece i managed, do let me know in the comments sec below. i always want to listen to people's stories, the lot of them.


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